1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to aircraft and, in particular, to managing aircraft movement on the ground. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for quickly and easily managing a route for moving an aircraft within an on-ground environment.
2. Background
Taxiing is the movement of an aircraft from one location on the ground to another location on the ground. For example, at an airport, an aircraft may taxi from a parking location at the airport, such as a gate or terminal, to a runway prior to takeoff. As another example, the aircraft may taxi from a runway to a parking location at the airport after landing.
Typically, the taxiing route for an aircraft is provided through a brief on-the-fly verbal interaction with a ground controller of Air Traffic Control (ATC). In some cases, the entire verbal interaction may last only seconds. The operator of an aircraft, for example, the pilot, copilot or other crew member, typically resorts to jotting down on paper the instructions provided by ATC, as quickly and as best as the operator is able.
For example, a pilot of an aircraft may call a ground controller while the aircraft is parked. The ground controller may verbally provide route instructions that form the taxiing route for the aircraft to the operator. These route instructions may identify, for example, a gate, one or more taxiways, one or more holding areas, one or more turns, one or more runways, or some combination thereof.
As the ground controller verbally provides the route instructions, the pilot may manually record this information using, for example, pen and paper, to create a copy of the taxiing route. Recording the taxiing route in this manner may be more difficult than desired. For example, without limitation, a ground controller may speak very fast, which may make manually recording the information more difficult than desired.
Further, in some cases, many airports have a number of different gates, taxiways, and runways. As the complexity of an airport increases, the complexity of the taxiing route may also increase. Quickly and accurately manually recording a complex taxiing route in a matter of seconds, may be more difficult than desired. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that take into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues.